Transition
by Michelle167
Summary: A short one shot that explores what happens to Ryan Clarke after the events of This Christmas was Surprisingly Violent.


Title: Transition

It has been several years since I wrote anything and I am incredibly rusty but I had to give this one a try (boy was it difficult). For me (probably because there is still some mystery to him) Ryan Clarke is the most interesting character in Legacies. But the Christmas episode...what a bummer. Yes, there were a lot of good parts but that ending...pure heartache. There is a chance the character is through. There is also a chance he will be brought back as a zombie only to be killed off permanently in later episodes. I would prefer that in the tradition of The Vampire Diaries like Alaric, Jeremy, Bonnie, and even Caroline that they find a way to bring him back and continue his story no matter where that may take him. But if he doesn't return there at least he can live on in fanfiction. So I wrote a short therapeutic One shot to lift my spirits and decided (despite my rust) to post it. Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Legacies

* * *

The searing pain hit suddenly...Malivore silently screamed. He had felt it before when his son had brought the girl but this...this was more intense. He stretched forth from the confines of his prison seeking the source of his pain and there on the ground beneath the now closed portal lay the head of his son. Someone had tossed it into the pit.

A more feeling father might have been incensed, angry even, but Malivore felt nothing. His sons were nothing more than a means to an end for him...a way to preserve his own life. Never the less he was ticked. He had thought the breakdown of his sons vessel would have given him the control over Ryan that he needed to bend him to his will...a full proof plan. But it seemed someone had interfered with that plan.

"It must have been the girl," he thought. "I can sense her..her blood."

Understanding consciously washed over him. "It cannot remain here"

A flash of light opened above the source of Malivore's pain but nothing was expelled from within.

The head had disintegrated leaving behind a pool of fresh blood. A searing heat rose as the ground beneath sizzled.

Malivore screamed. The agony became intense as the blood pooled out on the ground. Madness seized him and Malivore howled.

Had he been less aware he would have missed it. But time had honed his senses that even in the greatest of pain he was aware of all in Malivore. Blood was not the only thing that had issued from the now decomposed head. There was a presence...a presence he knew.

"Have you become like me?" Malivore marveled at the predicament of his son...of the son who had gone forth from him...the son who had betrayed him...the son who had left him a pooling mess without form. His son...Ryan Clarke had now come home without a form of his own. Malivore could not have planned it better himself. It was the perfect punishment.

Malivore groaned again. The blood was spreading, winding further and further from its entry point multiplying its searing heat into the depths of his being.

He wondered if this was also his punishment. His current state was no better than his sons.

Malivore thought of his creations...each more complex than the last...each more human than the one before it...Ryan being the most human of them all. In the end he had been perhaps too human.

He felt things that Malivore never could...needed things from Malivore that Malivore could never give him. At the time of his creation it had not mattered. He was simply a vessel that Malivore would have taken for his own had Ryan passed the test. Alas,he did not.

Malivore had not expected his son's response. He had been wounded and had sought revenge. Malivore had not seen it coming and by the time he had seen it for what it was, it was too late. His own creation, rejected for its weaknesses had been Malivore's own undoing.

And yet with time. Ryan had returned to him begging for forgiveness. Malivore did not understand. He could not comprehend the things that his creation felt...they were beyond him and of no concern to him. Yet, this was his creation and it had been created to serve him...to serve the purpose of his own self preservation. Perhaps there was still yet a way this son could help him in his current situation.

"Yes," he thought, "One last time."

* * *

"Oh My God we're in Hell! No such thing...I think."

The words floated up from nowhere and went everywhere. Where had Clarke heard them? Who had spoke them? Had he?

Hell? Was that why those words reached for him? Is that where he was?

He wanted to raise his hands to wipe his eyes that he might see more clearly as to what was before him but he had not hands to raise. He was simply there in the midst of nowhere.

"Hello!" he called out. He had no lips to move yet he could hear the word float through the darkness.

It was greeted by silence.

"You think that's our ticket out? No It's a comfort spell It's supposed to provide peace of mind"

The words crowded down on him. He vaguely remembered the feeling of comfort that had once swaddled him somewhere in his past.

"Thank you." His thoughts reached out once again and again no one answered.

The words belonged to a different time...a time when he was not alone. And though he could not admit it, a time when he had been pleased to have the companionship. But this was not that time.

Loneliness clawed at him. He felt an emptiness deep within his heart...an emptiness as deep as Malivore itself. It was his constant companion...his true mate..and the bane of his existence.

"No...This doesn't help me," Clarke pushed his thoughts of misery aside.

He tried to focus his vision. Why was it so dark?

"But it isn't necessarily dark is it," he thought, "I just can't see."

Ryan panicked. "Why can't I see?"

"You have no eyes," the panic rose within him.

"Anything can be real if you believe in it enough"

A distraction...the voice sounded familiar.

"What did he say?" How did he respond? "Merry Christmas, Hope."

Hope. The conversation was with Hope. It was the last thing he had said to her. The last thing he had said to anyone before...before what?

Ryan did his best to focus. It was the last thing he said to anyone before he went to the portal, but not the last thing he said.

"Don't worry Dad...I'll be home for Christmas!"

But he had never jumped. Everything had simply gone black. Not a blackness that he could see but one that closed in on him from every side smothering his memories and clouding his mind. Had Hope been right? Was there a hell? And was he in it?

"Oh God, I'm dead" he thought, " Really dead."

Why had he been struggling to remember something that he did not want to really know?

He did his best to swallow his panic. If death was forgetting his life then maybe that wasn't so bad. What had his memories ever brought him but pain anyway.

He made a conscious effort to sink down into the sea of forgetfulness that the darkness had been offering...to let go...to give in...to finally be finished...to forget it all.

The memories he had struggled so hard to find began to fade as the darkness moved in. He welcomed it and it consumed him.

* * *

Matter churned turning over, turning under, forming, unforming, and reforming. Folding in upon itself the substance began to lick up the blood that was spewn upon the ground. Drinking it in upon itself the form began to take shape...two arms, two legs, and a head. Malivore sensed the outline of the man who lay upon the ground. Familiarity registered as he stared at the face of his son.

He had also sensed his son fade into the darkness in a futile attempt to escape his existence. Malivore was familiar with that as well. He had sought it out after the decomposition of his own body but the numbness did not last. Eventually, he had been overwhelmed by the noise of the creatures of Malivore. His son would not have to wait so long.

Summoning his strength he called forth a stream of light out of the darkness. Weakened, with no power to resist, the stream obediently slid into the new vessel that eagerly awaited its arrival.

The figure's chest began to rise and fall, the intake of air slowly stirring the body out of its slumber.

Clarke's eyelids fluttered open. Sitting up, he clenched his fist testing it's flexibility. The body was new...he could feel the difference. Suspicion clouded his mind...he was no longer alone. Though he could not see him, he could sense his father's presence.

"Why?" he asked.

"You brought her here. Now you can take her out. One last service for me, but you can never return." The voice was firm and unyielding.

Panic seized Clarke. In all his dealings with his father, no matter how bad, he had always had the option of returning home. Why was his father casting him out?

Before he could ask, a light burst through the ceiling of darkness and opened its hungry mouth to gleefully swallow Clarke whole. In an instant the darkness of Malivore was left behind him, traded for a cool, crisp, night full of chirping crickets.

* * *

Clarke's mind had been searching for answers for days. Desperation was churning within him. He hated Malivore...he needed Malivore...he missed Malivore. He was conflicted. Why had his father cast him out? How could he ever win his father's love if he could never see him again?

He was confused but focused. Perhaps the answer lay in Mystic Falls. It was the last place he had been before he had returned to Malivore. He had been traveling for days to reach it, but today he had made little progress. He had been restless...more agitated than usual and it was slowing him down.

It didn't help that the soles on his shoes had worn and were beginning to cause blisters.

He could still remember the teenagers shocked face as Ryan had pummeled him with the rock. He rarely felt guilt, but this time was different. He simply hadn't meant to hit him that hard, but he had been desperate...he needed clothes.

"Maybe this is his revenge," Clarke mumbled to no one, as he gently touched the blister on the tip of his big toe.

He looked up the highway. There was not a car in sight and the sun was beginning to set.

"Perhaps I should stop for the night," he thought.

Again he felt agitated. He could only assume the situation with his father was driving his emotions. The lack of answers weighed heavily upon his heart.

Clarke left the highway and slid down the embankment into a wooded area passing a sign as he did so.

"Federally Protected Reserve"

Ignoring it, Clarke pushed forward eventually coming to a fence that protected the perimeter of the forest.

Sighing, he hoisted himself up over the fence, twisting himself to land to face towards the road.

He couldn't easily be seen by anyone passing by yet he wasn't so far from the highway that he couldn't make a quick start of it in the morning.

"Okay then," he whispered with approval.

Clarke picked the nearest tree to lay under. Sleep greeted him almost as soon as his head hit the ground.

* * *

The pain hit is body sharply, throwing him out of his peaceful rest.

He gasped for air. Again another pain sharply stabbed at his side.

His first thoughts were that he was being attacked. He flung his arms at the invisible attacker and was met with empty air.

No one was there.

A sharp pain rushed up his spine and sucked the air out of his lungs. Again he gasped to find his breath.

This was it wasn't it.

His father had rigged the system. He had done it to him again. The new body had a shelf life and as it expired, Clarke would die in agonizing pain. It would not be the sweet numbness that he had felt in Malivore without his body. No...it would see his new body torn from head to toe as he felt each torturous rip. This was Malivore's revenge.

The thoughts clawed at his mind as the pain clawed at his body. Clarke let out a guttural scream and ran wildly into the thicket of the reserve.

* * *

If it were not for the shallow breathing one would have thought the figure laying in the clearing was dead. Clarke blinked, flashing the whites of his eyes amidst the leaves and mud.

The night had brought clarity. There had been no revenge. He now understood his father's finale words.

He had taken Hope's blood into Malivore. His father had found a way to send it back out...through him.

But had his father understood what he had done?

Clarke's new body had become more than just a container for Hope's blood. Hope's blood had become his blood. That had become clear last night.

No longer a mud man from Malivore, Clark had turned. He had become a werewolf.

His mind raced. Is a werewolf all he had become? Or would he become a vampire if he died? Did he now possess the skills of a witch? Had Hope's blood in combination with his father's creative abilities sired him as a tribrid?

Clarke took a deep breath as he pushed himself up from the mud. His distress at being banned from Malivore faded from his thoughts. Malivore no longer mattered...he was no longer a part of that world. This was his world now.


End file.
